True Crime: Auto accessory theft

Someone ripped off the license plate.

Something did not look right as Lorene Brown watched her daughter wheel into their driveway. Her daughter lives in an apartment behind Brown’s house. She had just returned home, and Brown noticed immediately that her daughter’s front license plate was missing.

“She doesn’t know if it was stolen here or at the store,” she says. “The police said you’ve got to watch your license plate.”

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Police told Brown that three or four others had called in the thefts in the area in previous days. Her daughter previously had a DVD and television stolen from her car. She and her daughter were afraid the license plate might be used in a bank robbery or some other crime, so immediately called police, who gave them paperwork to have it replaced.

Dallas Police Lt. Gil Garza of the Southwest Patrol Division says this stolen car accessories are reported occasionally to his department, but are more rare than crimes such as breaking into a vehicle to steal something. Brown made the right choice in alerting police, he says.

“Should someone’s license plate become stolen, a police report should be made immediately. This report should then be taken to your nearby county vehicle registration office where new plates will be issued,” Garza says.

License plates are stolen for a variety of reasons, but most often by criminals who need them to provide a clean record should law enforcement need to run the vehicle’s registration, Garza says.

| crime numbers |

800

Block of South Tyler where Jesus Martinez was fatally shot by unknown suspects during a robbery May 7

11 p.m.

Time of night May 10 a man’s brown Chevy was stolen while parked in front of his house in the 1000 block of North Madison

$30,500

Value of property stolen or damaged May 5 at Oak Cliff Lutheran Church, including six air conditioners worth $25,000